About 48 per cent of car owners in B.C. drive small, fuel-efficient cars, according to Dennis DesRosiers, a Canadian automotive market research analyst. (Lars Hagber/Canadian Press)

British Columbia should not follow greenhouse gas emission standards for vehicles set by California, an automotive expert told a climate-change conference in Vancouver Thursday.

Automotive consumers in B.C. are more responsible than their U.S. counterparts in terms of driving habits and vehicle purchases, said Dennis DesRosiers, a Canadian automotive market research analyst for more than 25 years.

About 48 per cent of car owners in B.C. drive small, fuel-efficient cars that emit lower levels of greenhouse gases, DesRosiers said, while only 28 per cent of drivers do so in the U.S.

In May of last year, B.C. committed to matching California's plan to reduce tailpipe gas emissions from passenger cars and light trucks 30 per cent below 2004 levels by 2016. The reduction would be phased in gradually, starting with cars made in model year 2009, but the Bush administration has blocked California from making a change to its standards, and the issue is currently before the courts.

Adopting California regulations would drive up vehicle prices because of the cost of technology needed to make them, as well as increasing repair costs and insurance rates, DesRosiers said.

"The B.C. regulations put an extraordinary burden on the consumer in B.C., not the vehicle companies," DesRosiers said.

Premier Gordon Campbell called DesRosiers's analysis "just wrong."

Campbell said his government expects the new California standards will cut greenhouse gas emissions from new cars by 30 per cent and the changes won't have a great impact on the cost of cars.

"I can tell you that I believe that this does not in fact add enormous costs," Campbell told reporters on Thursday.

"We're seeing it today, when people who bought an SUV just a year ago found out that they no longer can trade it in for the value that they think it's worth because the market's not there," Campbell said.

Campbell said B.C. will wait until California has its regulations in place before following suit. "We will do it when the marketplace moves, and that will be when California's tailpipe emissions standards are allowed in the United States," said Campbell on Thursday. "So will that be in 2009 or 2010? I can't tell you when that will be."